“Air quality respects no boundaries,” said Lorenzo Labrador, Scientific Officer at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). “The smoke and the pollution that issues from the wildfires in this record-breaking season in the Iberian Peninsula has been detected over Western Europe already [and]…can travel basically throughout the rest of the European...
Attacks against health facilities doubled between 2023 and 2024, and more than 900 health workers were killed last year, the agency reported. Humanitarian aid workers were also killed in record numbers in 2024. Yet, 2025 is outpacing even these dark statistics at a time when funding for humanitarian work is...
This is just one way that the de facto authorities have restricted women and girls’ fundamental rights. Today, Afghanistan has the second largest gender gap in the world after Yemen. “Sometimes I wonder how to remain hopeful in these dark circumstances,” said Fariba, whose name was changed to protect her....
Marking its 30th anniversary, ISA is the world’s authority on the deep-sea beyond national jurisdiction. Washington may have passed an order on deep-sea licensing in international waters earlier this year, but the authority’s chief Leticia Carvalho said the United States, which is not an ISA member, “is going at it...
In the first half of 2025, only 17,000 births were recorded, according to Gazan health authorities, representing a 41 per cent decline in Gaza’s birth rate over the past three years, the agency said. “Every mother and child deserves the right to a safe birth and a healthy start to...
Globally, $1.4 billion of the agency’s programmes are being shuttered or put on hold, UNHCR said in a new report. “We can’t stop water, you can’t stop sanitation, but we’re having to take decisions when it comes, for example, to shelter,” said UNHCR Director of External Relations Dominique Hyde. “We’re...
In the fourth year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, housing remains one of the country’s most urgent humanitarian and recovery challenges. The destruction has been widespread and ongoing. According to the latest Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment, 13 per cent of Ukraine’s housing stock has been damaged since February...
Loneliness is linked to approximately 100 deaths every hour – more than 871,000 deaths annually. By contrast, strong social connections are associated with better health and longer life, the UN health agency said on Monday. WHO defines social connection as the ways in which people relate to and interact with...
“We have been approached by Israeli authorities to resume limited aid delivery, and we are in discussions with them now on how this would take place given the conditions on the ground,” OCHA said in a statement. It is now 11 weeks since the Israeli authorities closed off all food,...
In a statement on Monday, the UN agency said it is supporting Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) – not deportation – for those who decide to leave the US. At the request of the US Government, IOM is helping people who register to go back to their countries of origin voluntarily....
In total, 3.6 million “most vulnerable” people in Ethiopia stand to lose WFP food and nutrition assistance unless funding arrives urgently, warned Zlatan Milisic, the UN agency’s Country Director. “Over 10 million people in Ethiopia are acutely food insecure. This includes three million people displaced by conflict and extreme weather....
The estimates are from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, which on Friday called for increased funding to support Syrian returnees as needs intensify at a time when aid budgets globally are being slashed. “Since the fall of the Assad regime, returning home and starting anew has become a possibility for...